Evaluating Motorcylst's Risk Perception Regarding Road Accidents

Abstract

Motorcycle accident in Bangladesh is increasing over years. There were 19% motorcycle related accidents in 2019 and were increased to 27% in 2020, which is very alarming. Like many other developing countries of Asia, number of motorcycle users are increasing recently. Specially in Dhaka city, Bangladesh, mobile application-based ride sharing service gets much popularity. Now large number of young people take ride sharing bike as their source of income. As a result, number of motorcycles are increasing which obviously lead to more motorcycle related accidents. In this study, we performed a question survey related to the motorcycle accident risk perception among the motorcyclists. Total 131 interviews have been conducted through field visit by a questionnaire form. We considered total 19 factors of 5 different categories for motorcycle accident risk assessment. The factors were—Reckless driving of other vehicles (F1), Not paying attention to motorcycles (F2), Aggressive behavior by other road users (F3), Violation of traffic rules by other road users (F4), Reckless riding of motorcyclists (F5), Not paying attention to other vehicles (F6), Aggressive behavior by motorcyclists (F7), Violation of traffic rules by motorcyclists (F8), Unmaintained road surfaces (F9), Potholes (F10), Slippery road surface (F11), No pavement marking (F12), Road design does not follow specifications (F13), Unsafe road design (F14), Unsuitable road design (F15), Road infrastructure does not follow specifications (F16), Unmaintained road infrastructure (F17), Unsafe road infrastructure (F18) and Unsuitable road infrastructure (F19). The questions related to the factors were close ended and multiple-choice type. The choices were lack of influence, small influence, moderate influence, large influence and very large influence with scale 0 to 4 subsequently. Aggressive behavior by motorcyclists (F7), Violation of traffic rules by motorcyclists (F8) and Reckless riding of motorcyclists (F5) were ranked top three influencing factors for motorcycle accident risk. Condition of road surface related factors, such as, Unmaintained Road surfaces (F9), Potholes (F10), Slippery Road surface (F11) and No pavement marking (F12) reveled as least important issues in this regard. Our study will help concerned authority to list the action plan to countermeasure motorcycle accident in priority basis. Proper implementation of traffic rules, monitoring driving license scheme, campaign for awareness among public will ensure road safety.